d thrown him into
bankruptcy. He said it afforded him an opportunity to stay at home for
awhile, and get acquainted with his own family, and that for the first
time he learned to know the true worth of his wife, and that he found
his children the sweetest and dearest creatures that ever lived, and
not for all the business of the world would he again deprive himself of
their sweet association. Prior to his misfortune, or rather good
fortune, his business had so absorbed him that he had altogether
forgotten that there were sacred claims at home that demanded his
interest and his service.

Not all our orphaned children are in our orphan asylums, or under the
supervision of "The Orphans' Guardians." There are more of them at
home with their fathers and mothers, and especially among our
well-to-do families. There are children growing up who scarcely know
anything else of their father except that he is referred to during the
day by their mother when they are bad, as that dread personage who
would inflict a severe chastisement on them when he returns, or whose
presence silences their fun and makes their own absence agreeable. He
makes no effort to entertain them, takes no interest in their
pleasures, in their progress at school. He is simply their punisher,
but not their friend, and it is not at all surprising to see children
growing up with a conception of their father such as that little boy
had, who, when told by a minister of heaven, and of the meeting of the
departed there, asked: "And will father be there?" On being told that
"of course he would be there," he at once replied, "Then I don't want
to go." Occasionally wife and husband spend an evening out, or they
entertain company at home, and oh, what a transformation she observes
in him. In other people's homes, or when other people are present, his
stock of material for conversation is unlimited. Then and there he is
full of fun, bright and cheerful; when alone with his wife he has
scarcely a word to say; he moves about the house with the lofty
indifference of a lord, and with a heartless disregard of every member
of the household. At home he is cold and cross and boorish, in other
women's parlors he is polite and considerate and engaging. He has a
smile and a compliment for other women, none for his wife. If they
attend an evening reception, he brings his wife there, and he takes her
home; during the interval she has little, if any, of his company. She
m